November 4, 2008

9:04: It's a warm, sunny day, here in Madison, Wisconsin. A good day to walk to work and stop by the church that is my polling place. Will the lines be long? Will there be any adventures? I'll let you know it due time. Meanwhile, tell us about voting where you are.

10:43: I'm in my office now, having spent 43 minutes inside the church that is my polling place. I spent some of the time reading part of the assignment for today's Religion and the Constitution class. The line was calm and quiet, composed mostly of white people, disproportionately male, though directly in front of me was a young black woman, a student, who seemed to know every other black person who came through the waiting area. She was snapping flash photographs of her friends, one of whom had gotten to the front super-quick by the clever expedient of not being registered. In Madison, you can register the day you vote, and normally going through the line where you also register would slow you down, but there's been such an active effort to get everyone registered in advance, that the same-day registering folks have a shorter wait. At least, that was the case at 9:15 at the First Congregational Church of Madison.

10:51: So now you can abandon all efforts to influence me, because I've voted. You may wonder, was everyone voting at the First Congregational Church of Madison voting for Barack Obama. The answer is no. I saw a young man wearing a McCain/Palin button. He was the only person I saw wearing a button. I heard absolutely no discussion of the election inside the church. Not so much as a single voicing of the 3 syllables Obama.

I tried to vote on the upper east side of Manhattan this morning, but there was a crush of people on line. The polls are right across the street and I have watched election days for years. However, this is a HUGE turn out. I'll go back this afternoon or evening, the polls stay open late--I'll get mine in.

Voted in Madison at 7:30. Long line out the door, took about a 30- 45 minutes. It was in a church (not the one Ann votes at) and Mary was watching over me as I voted. One interesting thing about it was that the electronic machine that you are supposed to stick your ballot into was not working so you had to put the paper ballots in a slot in a box under the machine. hopefully someone will count them later.

I've reported on my voting on other threads, but I wanted to note that there were actually young pollworkers at my precinct. I talked to one (A high school senior whom I've known forEVER) and she said they had a American Govt Class (@ Edgewood) and that working in the polls was credit for the class (and it got them out of school) or something like that. One of the students had a most excellent spiked mohawk.

The weather is nice here. I hope to get in a round of golf between the end of the day and the polls close. Might try to sneak out early. I have a feeling I'm going to have to retreat to the golf course and pretend that Obama hasn't done something unbearably idiotic a lot these next few years.

West Union S.C. Our local precinct was packed all morning, but moving smoothly. The new electronic voting machines are fast and easy to use. The upstate of SC is usually very conservative, I think it may be a little closer this time around. But not close enough to change the outcome here.

Yes, I read about the turnout in the online CDT and even saw a quote from a friend's Mom who lost out on being #1 in line! I'll have to call the parents tonight and get the report from my old Elementary School, where they vote. (I think EP is still the polling place).

I voted in Harlem (121st and Lex) at 8:45 this morning - in and out in 15 minutes. From the Obama signs on every storefront I thought there would be delays and lines - guess they're waiting for the night shift or think it's already in the bag.

I voted last Saturday (10/19). Since I'm registered in Harris County (Houston), I was able to vote at any early voting location in the county. I chose a community center near my house. It smelled funny.

I was in and out in 30 minutes. There were state congress candidates standing outside asking for votes. I assume they were standing far enough away from the entrance to avoid violating election laws. No one told them to leave.

It took me longer in the booth than I expected. There were a lot of judges on the ballot, and most I had never heard of, even though I looked up a sample ballot online beforehand. Oh, well.

Forty-five minute long lines in my neighborhood in New Mexico for early voting this past saturday.

I've heard a lot of long lines in early voting in NM. I don't know if it's just my precinct or not, but I've never waited in line to vote on election day. Got there at 8am this morning which should have been busy. There were no lines at all.

I haven't voted yet, but I'm sure it will be the same as every year. Same ladies as poll workers for the last 20 years. Line of about 5 people, maxiumum,that I know personally.

Seriously, election day should be a holiday so people in more populated areas can spread out their voting during the day. In addition, each polling place should use the "SAME" rules, ballots and procedures for tallying votes. I'm really afraid that no matter which side wins, that the people will have zero confidence in the integrity of the election. The screaming from either side that the "election was stolen" will be loud and probably will be accurate.

Actually, I really don't care anymore since the entire process is corrupt from beginning (with the media) to end (with fraudlent voting and intimidation at the polls).

Doyle, the last poll on Ohio that I saw had McCain up by one; the one before that, dead even. With the systematic oversampling of Democrats and the Bradley effect factored in, yes, I think that McCain would win, if not for 200,000 fraudulent votes.

Bush won Ohio in 2004 by something like 120,000 votes.

But I'm sure you know much more about Ohio than I do; you flew over it a few times.

Perhaps you'd like to explain what prompted the out-of-left-field "douchebag."

I've never heard a convincing argument for why everyone has to vote on the same day. We had early voting for two weeks. It was very convenient. Especially since I didn't have to vote in my precinct.

I think that early voting and absentee voting should be available, but I really like the idea of voting together... that it's a corporate activity. Politics *is* divisive, but I think that doing even just this one part of it *together* with people who may disagree with us strongly, helps it to be a unifying activity.

Only a few people in line at my very conservative precinct (also a church) in central Florida.

After I marked my ballot for my candidate I almost asked for a new one. But I knew either way I'd have regrets.

To do my part to keep a divided government I had to vote for our incumbent Republican Representative, that f***ing little slimeball Ric Keller.

The only bright spot: as I was walking from the parking lot into the church, an older black woman (kind of a rarity in this precinct) gave me a big smile and said "God is great today!" This was a day she's waited for all her life.

My wife and I voted at 6:10am. We got to the poll at 6:01 and there were ~10 people ahead of us in our precinct. The other two in the school cafeteria had longer lines. When we left at 6:15 the lines were getting long.

Drove by several other polling places on the way to work. Lots of cars in the parking lots. Maybe Illinois will go Red! (Hey a guy can hope. For change)

Our polling place is at the same middle school (back then it was junior high) that my wife and I attended and that both our kids attended. One of my daughters P.E. instructors was a classmate of mine.

Just to make you more depressed, I have it on good authority that the Obama Administration will be raising taxes on World of Warcraft gold accounts above 3000 gold to 38.9%. The new tax will be levied in order to help those newer players who don't want to spend the time farming to get some quick easy money so they can gear up when WothLK comes out.

Oh and there will also be a ban on all Merciless Gladiator weaponry since it's too unbalancing in PvP and warlocks will be removed from the game because they're OP. Players with Warlocks will be given a refundable gold tax credit and a complimentary gnome warrior.

Voted this morning (for McCain) on the south side of Chicago (about 10 blocks south of Obama's house, in Woodlawn). I didn't ask how many times I was allowed to vote, though I was tempted.

Voting was at a glacial pace. If/when they have a rush, I expect the wait at that polling place would be multi-hour. They had one old lady working the verification book, and she would turn page by page to get to your name. It only took us about 30 minutes due to a rather slow turnout this morning.

The percentage of those in attendance who were in the wrong place but wanted to vote anyway was staggering...happily I did not see any blatant voter fraud. "But, I moved," was answered curtly with, "Did you change your registration?" If the answer was no, they were told to go to their old polling place.

One anecdote: a gentleman scanned his ballot and it reported that he had 'over-voted'. The poll worker explained that he had voted for more candidates for some office than the number allowed. They asked him if he wanted to recast his ballot, or just strike the over-voted section. He said, "Whatever." and walked out.

Just to make you more depressed, I have it on good authority that the Obama Administration will be raising taxes on World of Warcraft gold accounts above 3000 gold to 38.9%. The new tax will be levied in order to help those newer players who don't want to spend the time farming to get some quick easy money so they can gear up when WothLK comes out.

Well, it's a good thing that I am voluntarily spreading the wealth amongst my 7 other alts so we can all stay under the poverty line and get some free gold. (Saving the ninth slot for my Death Knight)

On my bike ride to work I overheard a middle-aged man ask an older woman:

"Where do I go to vote?"

"It depends where you live."

"I live near you."

I'll go with my wife and kids to vote tonight at our son's elementary school. Luckily the kids can't vote. For some reason they're full of beans about Obama.

My wife and I will cancel each other out, but it doesn't matter. Rhode Island will go for Obama.

In any case I will take a wait-and-see attitude about the next president.

The local mayoral race is more dramatic. An independent is running a very aggressive campaign against the sluglike incumbent. It's a rematch of the Democratic primary. The independent has promised the moon, but the incumbent has damaged our bond rating so I'm voting against him.

The one vote I'm proud to cast is for a lone Republican running for an at-large city council seat. Very smart guy running on fiscal issues. He's going to lose, though.

I live in a small village in the Catskills (pop. 3000). I went into the voting center and was out in about five minutes. I knew at least half of the thirty people who were in there, so I didn't even have to show an ID. Everyone said hi Kirby when I walked in.

I thought the voting machines were going to be different. They have a red handle that you pull over and then a cloth curtain closes behind you. You then push down all the tiny levers indicating your choices, and then you pull the red handle again, and the curtain opens up, and you're on your way.

I skipped a few elections because it was so inconvenient. I live and work in a congested metro area and I have always worked very far from my precinct. So I have choose between being late to work, leaving work in the middle of the day, or leaving work early. Either way, I end up waiting in line for over an hour.

I guess I wouldn't mind single-day voting if it was more convenient. Let's put voting machines in gas stations and grocery stores. They can go right next to the lottery machines. Just scan your driver license, touch the screen, and vote. It works for DVD rentals.

6:35 am: in line at Tanning Salon/Polling Place for 7 am open. I am #22 in line.

Your choice: paper ballot or wait for the 1 electronic machine. I choose paper ballot, finish in 90 seconds. at a dozen in line for the electronic machine want to change to paper ballot as I walk out in less than 2 1/2 minutes.

At least 100 people in line outside as I leave at 7:16 am.

Starbucks across the street - free coffee if you voted. Enjoying coffee and a cheese danish and a Wall Street Journal. Over 40 people in line at Starbucks as I leave at 7:48 am.

"The pitiful bitching about massive voter fraud that doesn't exist. Take it like a man, for God's sake."

Well, that takes a load off of my mind. When I heard that there were 200,000 registrations that didn't match up to SSN or BMV records, and that all of those 200,000 might have already voted thanks to early voting, and that there were several videos of interviews with actual people testifying that they'd voted 70 or 80 times for Obama and that they'd been paid $10 by an ACORN worker to do it, and that thousands of visitors from blue states were flooding the state and voting here, pretending that this was their permanent residence...

Well, I guess I just hastily assumed that Obama was trying to steal the election. That's how we typical white people are -- we're just afraid of anything new and unfamiliar, and we're always quick to accuse black men of theft.

I'm glad you set me straight, that this voter fraud doesn't exist. I'm so glad that there's someone like you out there to shine your light of wisdom on poor ignorant white people like me.

Voted at 7:15am in Saukville, WI. Took about 45 minutes. My ward line is the longest. Actually three wards in one. Other wards were pretty much non-existent lines. They'll have to fix that in the future. Voting this time at the YMCA. Previous elections were always at the VFW which is right off of a busy state highway. I guess in 2004 there were a lot of logistical problems with that. I will be returning to the Y at 6pm for my son's swim lessons so I'll get to see the hundreds of people trying to vote in the final hours. Glad I did it this AM.

Justin. One reason to vote on the same day, besides the solidarity of the action is that many things can happen in the last few days before the election that might have made you change your mind.

What I don't understand is the giant rush to get the results out well before all the ballots have been tallied. The rush to declare a winner when not everyone's vote has been counted and before the polls in other time zones have even been closed.

If you like vote by mail, then realize that it takes days and days to verify the signatures on the mailed in ballots. In my area, when the polls close, the ballots have to be transported to the county seat to be counted which normally is the next day (well after midnight) because it is an hour and half drive in good weather.

Well, that takes a load off of my mind. When I heard that there were 200,000 registrations that didn't match up to SSN or BMV records, and that all of those 200,000 might have already voted thanks to early voting

The first part (fraudulent registrations) is definitely happening, because organizations that register give incentives based on volume. Hence "Mickey Mouse" registering to vote.

HOWEVER, the concern that a significant percentage, let alone all of those fraudulent registrations actually resulted in fraudulent VOTES is unwarranted, because people don't actually try to show up to vote as Mickey Mouse.

There is overwhelming evidence that Voter Fraud is a phony epidemic cooked up by Republicans to try to suppress legitimate Democratic votes.

If paper, is the voter's name name on the ballot? I am curious if a ballot can be related to a specific voter? You may have heard Obama's campaign spokesperson voted illegally then rescinded her vote. So I was curious how that could be tracked.

HOWEVER, the concern that a significant percentage, let alone all of those fraudulent registrations actually resulted in fraudulent VOTES is unwarranted,

So, if I print up several hundred checks with fraudulent names on them or even with your name on them, you won't be in the least bit worried, right? After all, I haven't actually written any of those checks......yet.

I'm in Oregon. We all vote by mail. I voted a week ago. It is nice to sit with a cup of coffee and the voters pamphlet and vote at your leisure. I do miss going to the polls--such a ritual--but in the old days I'd often hear on the radio that winners were already projected before I'd even gotten to vote. Now, at least, I know i've voted even if it hasn't been counted yet.

AJ -- I voted on paper; I didn't notice whether an electronic option was available. And no, of course there's no way to relate the voter to the ballot once it's cast.

Doyle -- perhaps you don't know quite as much about Ohio as you thought. You see, Einstein, here in Ohio, for the very first time this year, you can go in and register and then vote AT THE VERY SAME TIME, immediately after registering, before the registration is even verified.

Courtesy of Gov. Ted Strickland (D), Secretary of State Brunner (D), and all the other Ds that make up the state government at the moment.

But I'm sure that these people that turned these things in were much too principled to actually use them to vote. Yes, I'm sure that you're right.

And I'm sure that polling places in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati aren't staffed by partisan hacks just itching to stuff the ballot boxes with any registered name on their lists that doesn't vote by closing time. Couldn't happen.

I voted in Northern Virginia. Got there about 5:45 am or 15 minutes before the polling place opened. There were probably 250 people in front of me. Took me an hour to get through the line. When I left there were probably 600 people in line.

The first part (fraudulent registrations) is definitely happening, because organizations that register give incentives based on volume.

And I bet if those organizations were being held accountable you'd be pissing down your pant leg.

The plain and simple way to void voter fraud is voter ID like we have in Indiana. If you need an ID to rent a move at Blockbuster or withdraw money from the bank, it certainly is reasonable to have one in order to prove you're the person on the voter rolls.

The only way to be a really withit person from here on in will be not only to note but to voice how many white people black people and who knows? dun colored people are anywhere at anytime doing anything.

You're right, Doyle, you're going to have to explain it to me again, slowly, because I'm so thick:

When Ohio allows voters to register and then immediately vote before their registration has been verified, how can we assume that a large number of those 200,000 fraudulent registrations haven't already resulted in a vote?

When it's been proven that hundreds of Obama volunteers from other states have cast ballots here in Ohio by pretending that this was their permanent address, how is that not voter fraud?

When multiple people have been interviewed on camera admitting to having voted 70 or 80 times for Obama and having been paid by ACORN to do so, how is that not voter fraud?

I'll just sit back and wait for your very well-reasoned and thorough explanation of each of these three points; I'm sure that you won't excerpt some small portion of this and reply with some snide one-liner.

Voted this morning at 8AM in Sacramento, CA. No lines. Sunny morning with ducks floating on the lake near my polling place. The ballot scanner said 79 people had already voted there. I've been trying to prepare myself for the disappointment I'll feel if Prop 8 (the anti-gay marriage amendment) passes (as seems likely). So in this subdued mood, I was thrilled to see three No on 8 volunteers with signs a short distance from the polling place. These enthusiastic young people really cheered me up no matter what happens. Thanks Professor Althouse for your terrific blog.

You see, Einstein, here in Ohio, for the very first time this year, you can go in and register and then vote AT THE VERY SAME TIME, immediately after registering, before the registration is even verified.

It's been that way forever in Wisconsin.

Another good quote: The democratic theory is that if you accumulate enough ignorance at the polls, you produce intelligence. (Philo Vance)

Yep. As Obama's depressing sunset logo reminds us, we stand today in the twilight of the Republic.

"Be that as it may. I am aready gearing up to oppose Obama's Herbert Hoover plans to raise taxes on the job creating class and limit free trade going into this recession."

If he wins, we are going to need to rapidly formulate a clear-eyed and realistic strategy to delay or derail as much of his agenda as possible. We will need to determine exactly what tools seem likely to be available (litigation, procedural tactics in the Senate and the rulemaking process), what others can be forged (for example, can the Berg case be resurrected with appropriate plaintiffs), and so forth. Fred Barnes is correct: they will move quickly. If Obama is elected President today, tomorrow morning we go to work to destroy him and anyone who goes to work for him using any tool that is legal and ethical. We're going to give him every bit as much deference and respect as the left has afforded Bush and Palin.

There is overwhelming evidence that Voter Fraud is a phony epidemic cooked up by Republicans to try to suppress legitimate Democratic votes.

You know, Doyle, that the only possible way this is true is if Democrats, far more than Republicans, are hopelessly unable to manage simple requirements like bothering to get an ID card *even* when they are provided free of charge.

Republicans lost whole regions of the country by not being inclusionary enough - New England, Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes States, West Coast. New England might be without a single Republican elected to the House, a “fact” not ever occuring before - dating to when Abraham Lincoln was alive.They are seeing further erosion in the Southwest, Rocky Mountain States, even the South.The Party is now the Party of the Rich instead of the working Reagan Democrat or the Middle Class. The Party of reckless spending, voodoo economics, gutting America of factories and good-paying blue collar and increasingly white collar jobs, Big Government Growth, and “deficits don’t matter”. The Party of the get rick quick schemes, rather than the voice of fiscal restraint and thrift and creating new good jobs.

You now have a Party dominated by the Religious Right - driving white women, hispanics off with their particular evangelical theology and extreme views on creationism, life. They have decided to start a war with Mormons, a critical part of the Coalition Reagan built.

This will be an Augean Stables level cleanup - so much lost so fast to so few special interest groups that perverted my REpublican Party. Wall Street, the Neocons, the Religious Right, the Corrupticans...

Here in Astoria, Queens, I got in and out in around five minutes (at 11:45 a.m. EST). I only had to wait for a young Indian family using the booth for my district (an old-fashioned one with a big curtain and the handle you pull and the tiny levers). The two kids, their heads reaching up to about the father's pocket, went in with the parents, all of them fairly brimming with civic pride. Kind of nice.

I chatted with the poll workers and they told me that they had an early rush in the morning, but since then it had quieted down.

The weather in New York is unseasonably warm for early November. Beautiful day.

Voted at 11 a.m. and encountered no campaign workers handing out material, just Girl Scouts selling cookies. Longest line I've seen at that location (high school of Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps) but still not long. I'm told the line was longer before 8 a.m. Poll workers shared laminated sheets detailing the ballot issues to those waiting in line. One older lady passed out at the machine and things slowed down as poll workers helped her until the EMTs arrived. A table with a big yellow cardboard screen proclaiming "Provisional" was set up and I don't recall every seeing one before.

I voted against early voting. Register-when-you-vote issues elsewhere associated with early voting strikes me as enabling voter fraud. Voted against slots.

This is our last Touch Screen election. We go back to paper ballots next time. The discarded electronic voting machines will be paid for in 2012.

Cedarford, I think I speak for the overwhelming majority of commenters, left and right, Obama supporters, McCain supporters and Palin supporters alike, in asking you to kindly go and fuck yourself, and to do so somewhere else, you vile, misogynist, anti-intellectual anti-semitic pig.

Well, congratulations to everyone who does vote this time around. I know so many "What's the point, my vote doesn't count" American friends. I just want to scream when I hear that. Here's hoping for a record turnout, and best of luck to you all whoever wins.

Voted at 11:00am CST. In and out in 5 minutes. One person ahead of me in the line for my ward. Everything was very sedate. I've now earned the right to criticize Obozo every step of the way through the next four years.

Most of the fraudulent voters in WI seem to be convicted felons who vote before their rights are reinstated. And there was vote-buying scheme with sleazeball McGhee in Milwaukee -- was that 2 years ago?

Rampant? Hardly? Occasional? Maybe -- but even that could be a stretch given the conviction record.

Simon:Cedarford, I think I speak for the overwhelming majority of commenters, left and right, Obama supporters, McCain supporters and Palin supporters alike, in asking you to kindly go and fuck yourself, and to do so somewhere else, you vile, misogynist, anti-intellectual anti-semitic pig.

I got in line at the YMHA on Manhattan's upper east side at exactly 7:25 a.m. I left the polling booth at 8:35. Everyone was very pleasant and studiously apolitical in their small talk. I'm sure they were all (except me) Obama voters but the cluster around me seemed to be very decent people--not at all like those rowdy drunks you meet while waiting in the tat parlor. I hope the good things they see in Obama come to fruition and the doubts I have about him prove to be, in the later judgement of history, totally unfounded. In the end, one can only vote and hope that you are as smart as most people or that most people are as smart as you.

True, except for the part about being able to rent movies being a fundamental human right.

That's cute Doyle. I suppose since voting in US Presidential elections is a fundamental human right, I take you you'd be open to allowing anyone to vote. I mean why should foreigners be denied that basic fundamental human right.

I suppose since voting in US Presidential elections is a fundamental human right, I take you you'd be open to allowing anyone to vote. I mean why should foreigners be denied that basic fundamental human right.

Wow. I guess I'm a little out of my league, here, debate-wise, but here goes:

Being foreign (or, say, a convicted felon) are strong reasons why someone should be precluded from voting. Having lost or not having acquired a particular document is not.

Voted this morning at the firehouse, took about 10 minutes. I got there about 7:45 and left about 7:55. The polls ahd been open about 2 hours when I left and I heard the poll workers talking about turnout- there had been about 200 voters in about 2 hours, a little higher than normal.

When it comes to voter fraud I agree with Pastafarian- the voter fraud in Ohio is a mess, and Madison Man- why never any prosecution? Because whose going to investgate? The WINNERS???

So of all the horrible decisions that the McCain campaign made, what do you guys think was the single worst?

Well I would say not not having a mom who dumped him off with grandma so she could travel the world, having a racist preacher for a spiritual mentor for twenty years, and not being buddies with unrepentant right-wing terrorist bombers since having those seemed to raise Obama's stock among his followers.

So, not having bothered to apply for a driver's license or take a driving test is, Ok? You have the fundamental right to drive anyway.

If your doctor decided not to get a particular document or register to practice in your state, I assume you think he has a fundamental right to take out your appendix.

This fundamental right/suppression argument is specious at best and basically STUPID. If you don't have enough responsibility to register to vote, get an identification card you shouldn't be allowed to have your vote count until you can be verified. These provisional votes are causing no end of problems and generating false results.

Question: why is it Democrats who can't seem to follow the rules? Stupidity? or intentional fraud? or both?

Vicky was spotted patrolling the line at her polling place, dressed in jodphurs and black thigh high boots, (quite innapropriate for jodphurs I might add, but her fashion statement) and a whip; cracking the whip and yelling RACIST at any of the whites in line who dared object when any black in the line spat at them.

Anyway, I voted midmorning at the nearby middle school. There was maybe 10 people in line waiting for 8-10 voting desks. The only thing that took time was voting not to retain a whole shitload of superior court judges. Maybe I need to get downtown more often, as I don't have a clue what all those judges would actually do.

The voting crowd was in great spirits, as were the officials. It was fun. I think I'll do it again.

Well, I enjoy Cedarford as a web creature, which is not to say that I like or endorse his views. (I'm a "cum gulping pederast" after all; I just don't take it personally.)

His best comments are hilarious and I think the place would be diminished without him. (Not a lot diminished, but definitely somewhat diminished.) He offends with flare and I think it's quite helpful to have someone around with such a...bold, crisp perspective.

justin - I've never heard a convincing argument for why everyone has to vote on the same day. We had early voting for two weeks. It was very convenient. Especially since I didn't have to vote in my precinct.

The main argument is that unlike the eternal Presidential contest, local candidates only have the resources or ability to get away from their day jobs for a short campaign. Early voting stretches campaigns. You have to start earlier to get the early voter contingent, but then you can't wrap things up and have to go back to the store, office, factory and wait the last two weeks out since you have burned up most your vacation time/comp days...because the bulk of voters still have to vote, and maybe your opponent is a housewife of affluenece who isn't time-limited. All for a State House seat or deputy mayor in a medium-sized town slot? No - the rationale and support breaks down on a local level. People who volunteer as poll workers also encounter similar restraint.

As America is growingly less competitive in trade and education, it doesn't need yet another "holiday".

One thing that should be looked at is abandoning the tradition of Tuesday for the weekend, to vote.

Uh, I'm pretty sure he does. It just doesn't mean AR-15s for everybody like Joe the Plumber-types might prefer.

Glad you agree with me, Doyle.

A Right is a Right for as long as we like it. Thus a "fundamental human right" can be denied to people so long as we come up with a reason to deny it.

I don't use the word "Right" that way, but Obama seems to, announcing that health care is a "Right." What medical care do people have a "right" to and who will provide it? And he easily announces that people have an individual right to bear arms, it's there in the constitution, and in the very same sentence will add that the right to bear arms extends only until a city government decides to limit that right. Because they want to.

Our election system is so sloppy and riddled with errors that allow out and out fraud.

If Obama wins, I have no faith that this was in anyway a fair election given all the thuggery in the caucuses, the fraudulent registrations, the duplicate registrations in several states, the lack of any accountability at all or the ability to indentify voters.

When you have Black Panthers weilding nightsticks at the entrance to polls intimidating voters and poll watchers being thrown out of the polling places so they cannot monitor to make sure there is no ballot box stuffing or intimidation....we have entered third world banana republic status.

The clerk of elections told me about 1,100 people are registered to vote in my district (2-3 machines) and so far about 50% have voted. I was 499 in fact. Maybe I will have to play that number in the lottery when Obama and Rep. Moran take away everyone's wealth.

Come to think of it, it must be a damn easy life financially when a member of Congress is paid about $160K per year, gets 100% paid health insurance and fully paid generous pension.

Probably is a bit like Althouse's financial life. It has to make one think a bit differently about household economics. I don't know how they can relate to the average person IMO. Though Althouse at least is surely grateful for what her hard work and talent have gotten her.

Most members of Congress should thank God everyday for their dumb luck.

You may wonder, was everyone voting at the First Congregational Church of Madison voting for Barack Obama. The answer is no. I saw a young man wearing a McCain/Palin button.

Hah! Illegal electioneering -- must stop 100 feet from the polls. Figures it would be a Republican doing it.

Hoosier beats the photo ID drum once again...

If you need an ID to rent a move at Blockbuster or withdraw money from the bank, it certainly is reasonable to have one in order to prove you're the person on the voter rolls.

while Kirby shows why it's unnecessary:

I went into the voting center and was out in about five minutes. I knew at least half of the thirty people who were in there, so I didn't even have to show an ID. Everyone said hi Kirby when I walked in.

Apparently New York State is still living in the 50s:

I thought the voting machines were going to be different. They have a red handle that you pull over and then a cloth curtain closes behind you. You then push down all the tiny levers indicating your choices, and then you pull the red handle again, and the curtain opens up, and you're on your way.

Such machines keep track of votes using mechanical counters that look like odometers. Cheating is carried out by incrementing counters for the favored candidates before delivery. The counters should be checked to read 00000000 before the day's voting begins.

Fearing long lines at the polls, we got there (public library) by 6:45, to be third and fourth in line at our precinct. Connecting the arrows with a ball-point was surprisingly difficult. Got our free tall (i.e. small) drip coffee from Starbucks, but bought cakes to compensate for their good will.

Make sure you know your precinct before you stand in (the wrong) line, in multiprecinct polling places.

ricpic said..."Vicky was spotted patrolling the line at her polling place, dressed in jodphurs and black thigh high boots, (quite innapropriate for jodphurs I might add, but her fashion statement) and a whip...."

Well, that image brightened my day a little. Of course, I have no idea what Victoria looked like, so my mind jumped to put Tina Fey in that getup, and it was tres racy.

For some reason, much to my detriment, I can't quite picture Althouse in that getup.

Isn't it strange how the Constitution rights that liberals invent - the right to vote in a Presidential election, the right to kill one's unborn offspring - are absolute and cannot be infringed under any circumstances, whereas even the rights that are actually in the Constitution aren't so absolute. Even the First Amendment, perhaps the strictest of all the restrictions, as the court has interpreted it, allows reasonable regulations, even when the result is that someone's speech may be limited. At any rate, I had my say on voter ID laws here, and have little to add. I have no problem in abstracto with asking people to jump minor hurdles before voting. Honestly, I'd go further: as I've said before, I'd like a 100% write-in ballot where you just get a list of positions and you have to write in your preferred candidate's name. If you haven't been following the race closely enough to know who the GOP candidate is, you don't need to be voting.

I voted about noon. It was pretty empty. The woman in front of me fed several ballots into the scanner while the poll worker maning the machine read a book. Don't know what that was about, but I'm sure there was a innocent explanation.

My voting experience in bitter, clinging, rural upstate NY: The main street was jammed with cars when my husband and I drove into the tiny hamlet where we vote. We were briefly alarmed by the prospect of lines, but no: everybody was there for the annual Election Day Dinner at the Methodist Church. (Great pies!)

Down the hill at Town Hall there were three parked cars -- well, one car and two pickup trucks. Inside there were four people: our friend Connie signing in the voters, two other officials, and one voter, who was being congratulated as voter #200 for the day as we walked in. (That's high turnout for noon in a town with 700 registered voters, according to Connie.) However, when Voter #200 was done voting, she couldn't get out of the booth. (It's our last year with the old machines here in New York before we move on to some new technological wonder.) The lever that is supposed to open the velvet curtains to let her out while simultaneously registering her votes would not work. One of the election officials leapt to the rescue, reaching over the top of the booth to shift the lever to the right while explaining that she hadn't pushed it over hard enough when she first stepped in. Demonstrating the necessary oomph, he shoved so hard that the whole booth rocked and a makeshift light clamped to the booth's other side to illuminate its dim interior came loose and smashed on the floor. Everybody yelped, especially the hapless voter still inside the curtains. "You still alive in there?" the official demanded, and then while Connie was sweeping up the broken light bulb he explained to Voter #200 that she should reset all her voting levers and try again. This time the lever worked and she emerged, looking distinctly relieved, to a round of laughter and congratulations on her survival from the rest of us. By this time quite a line of waiting voters had accumulated: four people. That old machine is clearly on its last legs, but it worked just fine for the rest of us.

a) make it easy to register; b) require picture ID to vote; c) make it convenient for non-drivers to get that picture ID (e.g. locations in every community of a state, well in advance of any election); d) require transparency and timeliness for efforts to purge voter roles of people who have moved/died/committed felonies; e) move to universal optical-scan paper ballots; f) assign state and local election administration to non-partisan professionals (or mixed-party committees); g) do the same for redistricting.

There really is no defense for practices that cast doubt on the validity of our elections, when the remedies are obvious and easy.

Doyle said..."So of all the horrible decisions that the McCain campaign made, what do you guys think was the single worst?"

Oh, easily his reaction to the financial crisis (if we can represent that collection of decisions as "a" worst decision). When you look at the polling, that's indisputable; his numbers were static through most of the year, attained near-vertical liftoff after the Palin pick, flamed out when AIG failed, and went into freefall when he did that asinine "I'm suspending my campaign" gamble.

"Honestly, I'd go further: as I've said before, I'd like a 100% write-in ballot where you just get a list of positions and you have to write in your preferred candidate's name. If you haven't been following the race closely enough to know who the GOP candidate is, you don't need to be voting."

Doyle should be for this. He has shown us repeatedly know the Democrats are smarter ergo better spellers. Fill-in-the-blank tests would be an impossible hurdle for the members of the GOP.

Doyle said..."[Simon said, 'Isn't it strange how the Constitution rights that liberals invent - the right to vote in a Presidential election'] So you're saying liberals invented Democracy... and that's a bad thing?"

No, I'm saying you just invented a non-existent right to vote in a Presidential election. Even Michael Dorf admits that the Constitution contains no such right. As the court explained more than a century ago, the appointment of Presidential electors is "placed absolutely and wholly with the legislatures of the several states. They may be chosen by the legislature, or the legislature may provide that they shall be elected by the people of the state at large, or in districts, as are members of congress.... This power ... cannot be taken from them or modified by their state constitutions any more than can their power to elect senators of the United States. Whatever provisions may be made by statute, or by the state constitution, to choose electors by the people, there is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated." McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1, 34-5 (1892).

Because it weakens the word to mean nothing at all. Case in point: you.

"Right" has come to mean something like "a good idea" instead of something that is, truly, a god given (or "natural") human right that exists despite majority rule, despite tyranny of any sort. Our constitution starts out by listing the rights that our founders recognized... in short, the right to what is in our own heads, our right of conscience. So, association, speech, religion, assembly, self-defense... those things. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

The "right" to health care (for example) isn't a right to our own conscience and associations... it's a "right" to *get* something.

The "right" to bear arms that ends just as soon as a city mayor, council, police chief, or majority vote decides to take that right away, is not a "right" at all.

I don't fully agree with that, Simon. Though I see why you feel that way. I think suspending his campaign to deal with the crisis was reasonable and admirable, but I think the media spin was what he wasn't prepared for.

I would say, if he loses, that is what I would point to as McCain's biggest mistake. Believing the MSM was honorable in any way, and counting on some fairness.

I'd add this one. States can not have ballot initiatives or bond issues on low turnout primary ballots. These things must be on general election only.

Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Rendell loves to put ginormous bond issues on the primary ballot in years when there are no big elective races (i.e federal offices). So less than 10% of registered voters bother to vote and of course Rendell gets his drones and party faithful to show up. To me, that is almost as bad as communist "elections".

For the last seven years we have had the highest corporate profit ever in American history. . . But it hasn't been shared, and that's the problem, because we have been guided by a Republican Administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it. They have an antipathy toward the means of redistributing wealth. And they may be able to sustain that for a while, but it doesn't work in the long run.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Monday that the United States will "lose a lot of stature throughout the world" if Barack Obama is elected president.

Looking forward to a potential Obama administration in an interview with CNN, Hatch said, "...We're going to lose a lot of stature throughout the world because we have somebody who, though eloquent and a very nice person, who I like, who doesn't know what he's talking about."

I guess I didn't know that the right to vote wasn't actually a "right" in a Democracy. My mistake!

Of course you didn't, Doyle. Because you think that a right is any thing that is legal or desirable or good.

Thus a higher level of, well, we use the word "right", does not exist.

Unless you can think of a better word to use for those things that we are, by virtue of being human, endowed with by our Creator as "things" that can not (not shouldn't be, but *can* not) be removed even by a majority vote. Things that, if there is a law against them, still exist and still must be expressed.

My wife and I both went to vote about 9:30 a.m. We didn't have to wait in line. We walked right in, voted and walked right out again. I have heard of longer lines at other precincts in our town, however.

In addition to the examples you list, there's a serious structural problem with inventing Constitutional rights. Constitutional rights aren't coextensive with natural rights; they are specific, direct restraints on what government can do vis-a-vis the people. They subtract from general grants of power - so, for example, a law imposing a watermark requirement for printing presses might be sustained as within Congress' general grant of power as an incident to regulating the interstate market in printed materials, but might still fall afoul of the First Amendment. The partial birth abortion law is a recent example: the plaintiffs maintained that Congress had general power to pass laws regulating abortion, but this law regulating abortion violated the Constitutional right to abortion. (They were wrong on both points, but the court only rebuffed the latter contention, not its assumption; Justices Scalia and Thomas went out of their way to reserve the other question.)

The point to get to is once you see Constitutional rights for what they are, you realize that every time you invent a new Constitution right (or actually amend the Constitution to create a right), you're putting the issue outside of the realm of self-government. You're saying that this issue can no longer be debated, argued over, compromised on. You might think that it's a good idea that convicted felons can't run for Congress, but that issue is off the table. There's no point in arguing about it; the Constitution settles the question until it's amended. Maybe Miranda is a really bad idea, that it helps criminals and makes life harder for law enforcement, but it's off the table. Constitutional rights are not an unqualified good, but liberals never seem to understand that these days. They once did, back in the Lochner days, when the courts made up an imaginary Constitutional right to freedom of contract and used it to strike down all manner of perfectly valid liberal legislation. That was wrong, too, but most liberals show little aptitude to learn from history.

Darcy said..."I don't fully agree with that, Simon. Though I see why you feel that way. I think suspending his campaign to deal with the crisis was reasonable and admirable, but I think the media spin was what he wasn't prepared for."

I suppose it was a gamble, and if it had paid off, if he'd been able to negotiate a deal, maybe he'd have profited. But it seemed to me - a supporter! - like a cheap, cynical, political ploy, and I think most voters very quickly formed the same opinion.

Just voted here in Chelmsford Mass.There are 9 precincts and I made a note of the counter on the machine that you feed the paper ballot into. 1308. 9 times that is 11,772, which I figure is pretty good for half-way through the day in a town of 34,000.

Quit wanking. How about if I said "It's more important that eligible voters be able to vote than it is that eligible movie renters be allowed to rent movies." No insufferable disquisition on what makes a "right."

Obviously I didn't mean that voting in US elections is a right afforded to every human being. Don't be so fucking stupid when you can help it. It's something that Americans of voting age are generally entitled to do.

Doyle said..."I guess I didn't know that the right to vote wasn't actually a 'right' in a Democracy. My mistake!"

See, that's the mistake you make. You assume that we're a democracy and everything you rest on that flawed assumption is unsound. I don't know if this state or that state is a democracy, that's their business, but the United States are a federal republic; we use democratic processes for the selection of some parts of the federal apparatus and other methods for selecting other parts.

Democracy has its uses and its place, but I don't understand the fetishization of it, the weird idea that somehow the paramount goal is more democracy. How can a process be seen as an end result? To my mind, the paramount goal is a government under the control of the governed that most efficiently balances liberty and order. There are inherent tensions in that goal, and democracy is usually the most efficient and effective way to secure that end. But not always, and it bears particular note that when our priorities are set in the correct order - when democracy is seen as the means not the end - it becomes irrational to say that more democracy must always be better. Sometimes more democracy is worse: some states elect judges, for example. And sometimes, a measure that infinitesimally constricts or burdens democracy actually promotes the efficient functioning of the system. Voter ID laws fall easily into the latter class.